Going Deep: Top Space, Bottom Space, and Sado-Erotic Ecstasy

By ChrisM © 1998-2002 Of SubBondage.net

Going deep refers to SM play that leads to deep, ecstatic, or trance-like states. Practicing SM, we occasionally go deep without even trying, and suddenly encounter sensations of soaring, arrival, bliss, contentment, and sudden comprehension of deep untranslatable truths. Sometimes they feel like mystical revelations or seem related to feelings we encounter through meditation, prayer, or spiritual awakening. For many of us, SM is the most real experience in our lives; the closest we come to a state of grace. I feel it in my own play as an intense, ferocious excitement, a keenness of the senses, a whoosh of wow, an I-feel-so-fucking-alive feeling! It's the feeling of a great athletic achievement, a great personal victory, or really hot sex: a dripping-all-over-and-I-don't-care abandon. Sado-Erotic ecstasy appears in a fiery rainbow of flavors: as overwhelming pleasure, as tranquil stillness, as joy, as the sobbing release of tension. Often there is an overwhelming connection between the participants, sometimes with higher powers, even the whole of humanity. It doesn't happen often, but if you have felt it even once you know how amazing it can be. It appears during all kinds of play, although it is often reported in fisting, mummification, piercing, cutting or long flogging scenes.

The spiritual experience in SM is often described as a trip taken to a mystical plane that is part of the world but somehow outside it. Bottom Space and top space are words used to describe the inner states tops and bottoms can get to during a scene. While they are different for everyone, here are some approximate definitions:

Bottom Space can be a meditative, languid rapture, a voluptuous feeling of safety, surrender and trust. It can be a sense of deep meditative trance, a slow, silent feeling, even when pierced by bursts of overpowering sensation. It's when you can't tell pleasure from pain, the way when touched by an ice cube you can't tell hot from cold. It's hearing everything, but from far away. It's a feeling of being lost and found at the same time, and can include the magical experience of watching your pain tolerance rise until sensations that were painful and harsh become lush, and smooth.

Top Space is often a crystalline clarity and focus, an awesome sense of power, and nurturing instincts towards your submissive partner. It is similar to the athletic high, a highly alert and rapturous involvement in the activity at hand, a quickening sensation, as opposed to bottom space's molasses slowness.

Both are often accompanied by intense feelings of bonding with your partner, a dimming of analytical thought, the closing of peripheral vision and a natural and unforced focus on the activity you are engaged in. In both, there can be a floating sensation, a sense of time slowing down, a feeling of floating like a hot glorious soap bubble, or an altered state we would liken to the hallucinogenic rush of psychotropic drugs. At their deepest levels, these experiences can be life altering.

The Top, the KaSeka, and the Bottom in the Boat

Generally, bottoms go deep easier than do tops, both because of the bottoms direct tactile involvement with the play, and because of the obstacles facing the top mentioned above. Mutual involvement, mutual commitment, and fusion - not separation - between the bottom and top can bridge this gap. It is not enough for me just to get my partner hot, I want to walk through the fire too. It's more than sexual excitement, though, that can be part of it. There is often a sense of wonder, of discovery, sometimes sheer sadistic glee, passages of sorrow or blind rage, and all the flavors of rapture and joy we discussed earlier. Like a good bottle of wine, it's an experience that benefits from being shared together.

To steal an analogy from Joseph Bean and Fakir, the top role is similar to the role of the KaSeka, the shaman or tribal holy man, in the medicine ritual. The KaSeka presides over and participates in the magical rites (often a ritual involving intense bodily ordeal) to work cures or discover wisdom for the subject who has come to him for help. The KaSeka doesn't just heal and enlighten his subject, he goes on the trip himself. According to Joseph, the difference between the KaSeka and the SM "service top", is that the service top puts the bottom into a boat and pushes it out into the stream. The KaSeka launches the boat and then jumps in to share the voyage. A good scene, in other words, transports both bottom and top together. It should be more than simply technically sound, a good scene should be able to get you high.

When I want to go deep, I've learned to do things that work for me. Among them:

• I strive for concentration, an active and exclusive focus on the scene we are embarking on together, a "cone of silence" is how I like to describe it. I absolutely block out any other distractions that could dilute my focus on the scene.
• I concentrate on making a deep connection with my partner. It generally helps to have a correspondingly deep commitment from my partner for connection with me.
• It helps to play with partners I am comfortable with and have played with before. This provides a greater reservoir of trust, and thus a greater willingness to explore.
• I approach the scene with a sense of openness to improvisation and surprise.
• I allow my scenes to go longer and to build more slowly.
• I gradually let the scene grow heavy.
• I involve sexual excitement by doing things that turn me on, turn my partner on, or both.
• I try to get my whole body physically involved, especially activities that work the muscles, and emphasize rhythm, trying for the ecstatic physical rapture that occurs during intense workouts, hot sex or childbirth (Flogging, spanking or other impact play is especially good). As a top, I use my entire body, arms, chest, hips and legs. Even when bottoming and tied up, your muscle groups can alternately be tensed and relaxed. Its gets the blood pumping, and feeling into the body.
• I tend to lose the heavy leather gear and often strip to the waist. Playing bare-chested gives me more skin to make contact with my partner, bringing us closer. It allows me to feel if the air temperature is high enough. What's comfy for a heavily clad top that's busy doing stuff may be chilly for a nude bottom standing still.
• I emphasize deep, slow, meditative breathing, sometimes synchronizing my breathing with my partner. Breathing involves both rhythm, which has a meditative, hypnotic effect, and the consumption of oxygen, an intoxicating agent (either overloading through hyperventilation, or exercising deprivation can produce a drugless high). Slow, deep, rhythmic breathing brings centering and focus, binding bottom and top together especially when the breathing is synchronized. Bad breathing is the opposite: shallow, fast, and irregular. Breathing tends to calm, and will bring a wandering attention back into the body. For bottoms, breathing can radically expand your ability to handle pain (holding one's breath to "tough it out" always makes things worse). For tops, teaching a bottom proper breath is one of the greatest gifts you can share. I could go on and on about this, but instead get a book on meditation (it's really the same thing).
• Press the breathing into her
• I try to make effective use of ritual to emphasize the altered reality of the scene. Music helps, preferably something hypnotic, instrumentally based with unobtrusive lyrics.
• I use fantasy to draw on past or imaginary events, both positive and traumatic, to add emotional power to the scene. I know the conventional wisdom says, "don't play when you're upset," and this is solid advice. But many don't have the option of cheering themselves up before play. Wailing on someone can be really cathartic, but reach for the softer tools in the toy bag to buffer the intensity of your blows. Then work it out of your system. Get mad. Dedicate strokes: "This is for that prick who cut me off in Traffic", "That's for the kid making a wreck of his room", "This is for the check that came late". Don't go hog wild: aim for a smoldering, slow burn, not a wild uncontrolled explosion.
• I will often shoulder some share of the pain myself, to let into the bottom's experience of the scene. I use my fingertips to carry the ignited fuel during fire play, make my body part of the violet wand circuit so I radiate sparks that my partner and I both feel. It's why I love bare hand spanking. It brings me close to my partner, and the mounting ache of my hand puts me into the zone I am creating for my partner. By wading into those challenging waters myself, I am often able to seduce my partner into venturing farther in with me.
• I actively strive to reject the small-mindedness and nit picky moralizing about the behavior and play of others that often runs rampant within the leather community.

So, "going deep," in short, involves the kinds of habits many experienced players rely on, particularly those who have played together over a long period of time. It means opening yourself up to the experience of the scene in its full spiritual depth. Yes, it sounds flaky and very California, but its true. But I don't mean get all wimpy, wear flowers in your hair, get misty eyed at Barry Manilow songs, or become half-hearted about dishing out pain. You can still be a heartless, wicked, magnificent dominant, and experience the scene more fully. My scenes have actually become heavier, as I've come to feel them more.

Releasing the Inner Animal

All of us have it: an aggressive inner force, an animalistic energy that we encounter occasionally, usually in times of extreme emotional or physical duress. Sometimes it comes to our aid, allowing the proverbial old lady to lift a car off her injured grandson. Sometimes it lashes out at random, injuring or killing innocent bystanders. Psychologist Konrad Lorenz famously titled it the "Killer Instinct", and believed it to reside within each of us, in varying degrees. Freud wrote of the "id", Carl Jung of the "shadow". Christians call it "original sin" or "Satan". SM writer-therapist Guy Baldwin calls it "the beast". Many scene folk feel that an "animal self" emerges during play, often a creature of great strength, endurance and rich, carnivorous appetites. Joseph, a top, has a lion personality that emerges during play. Bernadette, a bottom, becomes a puma. The popular horse and pony equestrian extravaganzas have allowed hundreds to open up about their secret identities as human horses, ponies, hound dogs, puppies, and kittens. The world of SM nicknames forms a veritable bestiary. "Bear's" nick speaks for itself. So does "Raven", "White Owl", "Wolf", "Cat" Virtually every other leather bar in America is called the "Eagle."

This isn't just talk. You can see it in the structure of our brains in the continued presence of the limbic cortex- the lizard brain - still operating the instinctual level of the five Fs (fight, flee, fuck, feed and fall asleep), while the neo cortex and cerebrum embody our higher level reasoning capacities. Evolution did not replace our animal lusts, but merely added to them. You can see it in our apelike bodies, covered with bestial hair. Look at our canine teeth, made for tearing flesh from living prey. Look at our toenails and fingernails, remnants of animal claws. Look at our dietary needs. We cannot eat - as vultures and earthworms do - the flesh of the long dead. We crave the meat of creatures cut down in the full blush of youth. That's the kind of steak I like. You like it too, even if the idea scares you. Even vegetarians demand their meat freshly killed. Show me one cookbook with recipes for putrid tomatoes, rotting cabbage, or apples picked off the ground. Eve plucked her apple from the tree - and so do we. The archetypal leather jacket is yet another example. You didn't get that jacket from a cow lying dead in a field; it's a relic from the slaughter.

Though it's seldom discussed, I feel SM is driven by these primal forces. Some may find this to be a distasteful idea, but those who deny the inner animal's reality do so at their own, and society's peril. We have all heard stories, or lived them, of seemingly harmless, decent people who quietly warp into bitter, angry, deranged creatures, one day snapping, and entering history as killers, rapists, war criminals and worse. Whole civilizations go crazy sometimes, becoming barbarous wolf packs in which it is acceptable, even mandatory for citizens to unleash their inner aggressions against enemies of the state. The psychology of the herd, whether it's the Nazi programs, the Stalinist purges or the merciless zeal of scene gossip circles should be proof enough of the inner animal's dark potential.

In SM, however, we try to free the inner animal to feed, fuck, and purge its blood lust in a way that does no harm. That's the difference between SM practitioners and the thousands of killers, wife batterers, child abusers, rapists and their soul annihilating acts of hatred, desperation and rage. SM's greatest gift is that it does not rely on denial of natural aggressions, but on proper management of them. The inner animal will eat. The question is whether you will to be the one to feed it, or whether fate will decide who and what the inner animal consumes. Some may be able to starve their inner animal into submission, but may also starve themselves (and contend with the insanity of the starved). Some may simply never hear the roar of their inner beast, and have no consequent need for deep, intense SM. But for those who do, feeding the inner animal with the raw meat of SM can be beautiful and cathartic. There's a surprising tenderness and intimacy in letting the inner animal show, or bringing out the animal in someone you care about.

How do you do it? By using the techniques of the previous section, plus intent, involvement and focus. When I'm engaged in a scene, moving, breathing, focusing on the play partner in my clutches, I will feel the animal stirring, sniffing, lumbering forward. As this happens I often find toys cumbersome and want to use my hands to feel, to touch, to pinch, to feel, to strike. "Animal moves" start feeling oddly natural. I want to bite, rub, use my head to rub my sweat onto my partner's body. Lick. Taste. Tongue kiss. Sniff. Touch. Tickle. Claw gently. Claw not gently. Massage, hug, and knead. I make noise: grunt, growl, moan, cry out, hiss, roar, sigh, and whisper. This altered vocabulary of physical movement brings out my animal side, and makes it feel vivid and real. It's not really acting; it doesn't feel like acting anyway. It feels like leaving the door ajar and allowing something within me to walk through it.

The Hand on the Leash: The Inner DM

As you can imagine, summoning up dark forces from deep within your psyche is risky, and requires vigilance. Like any predator, the inner animal must be watched. For some, allowing a powerful, nameless force loose in a scene grazes close to the "sanity" warnings of the safe, sane and consensual trinity. You may feel moments of irresistible temptation to go hog wild, but don't. Let the animal out, gradually. You don't want an explosion, but a long, slow burn. The scene is raw meat and you may want to tear right into it, but don't. Sip it and savor. It's cognac too.

During a scene, I try to maintain two separate but parallel levels of awareness: at one level, I am a character in a fantasy: a torturer, rapist, captor, wild beast. At the same time, I am my own dungeon monitor, with a vulnerable and precious loved one to protect. I maintain this dual focus to keep myself from getting so lost in the scene that my judgment is impaired. I don't want the scene to end badly - or even awkwardly if

I can help it - but I don't want the buzz to stop. Both roles operate in tandem: the DM watches as the scene unfolds, monitoring the physical and emotional well-being of my partner, and keeping my fantasy self from getting too carried away.

What does it feel like? It feels like an exorcism with the top playing the role of both demon and exorcist. I watch closely, and try to stay in the moment (advanced preparation helps). I also encourage my partner to empty her mind of any distractions, and to concentrate on her breathing and the experience we are sharing in the present moment. And I do things to maintaining control over a scene, without breaking the spell:

• I check in, with my partner, asking how things are going, where it hurts, if my partner needs water.
• I take lots of short little breaks to rub, massage, kiss, caress and inspect.
• I stay ready to adjust, fix, or gracefully end a scene if I have to.
• I sometimes ask to hear the safe word to make sure it hasn't been forgotten.
• When I feel myself going deep, and hitting harder, I downshift to softer, less severe toys, so I can hit harder without overloading my partner.
• I let my excitement show, and make a point of communicating it, verbally and non-verbally.

The balance between the Inner DM and the inner animal is a fine line, and I'd be lying if I claimed to have never gone too far. I've never sailed past a safe word or let a partner come to harm, but I have left marks I didn't mean to, and I've let scenes get heavier, more painful, and scarier faster than I should have. This is not a boast, but an acknowledgement that going deep is a challenging process, and probably not advisable the first time you play with someone. How much is too far? Some people get scared when they feel the inner animal step forward. A woman at one of my talks said that when she felt her "other force" stirring, she got scared and pulled back. In the interest of exploring top space gradually, I recommend going "a little" farther each time, perhaps ten percent farther and no more, and to see how that feels. I feel the exploration of deep play should be savored, and that going a little deeper each time is the proper approach until you've found a zone that's satisfying. Even the inner beast must take little baby steps at first. Another idea is to open and close a scene with a shared meditation; perhaps five minutes of sitting peacefully and looking into each other's eyes. Framing a scene with ritual, and knowing that's where the scene will conclude, gives the scene a foundation in order and contemplation, so that the wildness of the beast can be unleashed and not be misunderstood as chaos, but what it is: the white-hot edge of the soul.

The shadow, and really, all other parts of the psyche, are like dogs. They like to be let out once in a while. If you keep parts of yourself under constant lock and key, and never feed them, they will sicken, become unhappy, perhaps even rebel, breaking loose in destructive and asocial revolt. Accepting one's own shadow nature is a way of accepting oneself, warts and all. It's a form of generosity, and wisdom, when you can forgive and accept your weaknesses, as opposed to hating and rejecting a part of yourself that you must keep concealed. By accepting yourself in all your strangeness, hopefully you can more readily forgive and accept the peculiarities of others. The alternative is to deny the shadow's existence and to keep it bottled up.

To illustrate the balance between the inner animal and the inner DM, lets return to Joseph Bean's bottom-in-the-boat metaphor. The top is on the shore, and the bottom is in the boat. A long rope connects them. As the tops feeds out the rope, the boat is swept out, and the water deepens. The top wants to give enough line for the bottom to feel the ocean's full depth and power, roll on the waves, taste the spray and blue water, while retaining the power to draw the boat in. In and out, the bottom drifts within the top's control. This is the traditional role of the top managing a scene.

Only one detail needs to be changed to describe the process of going deep and the dance between the DM and inner animal, the lion and lion tamer. If you followed the rope from the top on the shore through the waves, to the boat, you would find the bottom in the boat, drunk on the ocean air, dragging toes and fingers across the rolling surface of the wine dark sea. But here's the miracle: the top would be there too. On the shore and in the boat, holding the bottom close, giving strength, being there. Breaking the waves, tasting the spray under the sun. Getting high.

Going Deep: What It Feels Like From The Top's View

When I play (boy do I hate that word) and really want to go deep, I always try to involve the athletic experience, and flogging is a good approach. Sometimes a sexual rush will be part of it, sometimes not, but in a flogging I can guarantee myself a workout and the glow that comes from creating a scene well. This is my modest goal. That and that luscious wide-eyed "oh what are you going to do with me" look of my partner. If I get that out of it, I'm grateful. But, if things go well and the chemistry is right, there is often a great deal more.

I could be flogging a man or a woman, but lets make it a woman since that's where my greater pleasure and broader experience lies. I prepare before my partner's arrival by putting my dungeon in a state of order. I am a wretched housekeeper and the sight of the dungeon ready for company always puts me in a good mood. When its time to begin, I start by creating a cone of silence, as described earlier. I take a fistful of my partner's hair, and look deep into her eyes, maybe kiss, maybe not. I always remove my vest, usually my shirt too. I want liberty of movement, and to be able to feel my partner's body against mine, to feel my own sweat. I usually start by giving a massage, rubbing the flesh, and letting my hands explore the body I will be working on. I start the flogging slowly and slowly build up, knowing I'll be hitting harder soon. I breathe deeply and slowly and try to develop a rhythm to my breathing. If my partner isn't breathing deeply or evenly I will request it. If necessary, I will stop flogging - but not the scene - and simply concentrate on getting her breathing and mine in sync. Proper breathing always helps. Music helps, too, preferably something loud and hypnotic (Sterolab albums are my faves). As the flogging builds in intensity, my body starts getting into the athletic experience, building up the intensity. I become aware of a sense of hushed anticipation, of suspense. The muscles in my arms and shoulders start warming up, and soon the burn starts in, spreading to my chest and back. I welcome it, picking up the pace to meet it more fully, and soon I feel the sweat. It feels good. I want to be in the experience, not outside watching it. Often I lash my own back with a single tail to share the burden of pain, sometimes turning my partner around to watch, holding eye contact while I do (some bottoms get really turned on by this part). It puts me in the picture, shows I can take what I dish out, and subtly commands my partner to be brave and strong. Periodically I rest and embrace my partner, massaging, hugging, touching, kissing, licking the areas I have been working on. I rub my face, forehead, chest against her, using my sweat and wet mouth as libation, getting off on the feel, the taste and smell. I let myself imagine doing unspeakable things as I get off on the smell of her hair, her skin. Sometimes I put my ear to her breast to hear her heart beat, and all the little sounds she makes while under duress. Sometimes I will do a sort of Pentecostal laying on of hands, close my eyes and imagine Ki, body energy, rushing back and forth between us.

I go back to work. Breathing deep and slow, in time with the rhythm of the flogger, I start humming under my breath. Getting into it, watching her move, listening for the sounds she will make. Muscles starting to burn, I let my eyes drift shut and let the rhythm and my body flow together. I aim for the fluid grace of Bruce Lee and his nunchucks as I pick up the pace, always varying my approach in terms of tempo, sting and impact force. At some point I let fantasies of transgression float in, to get me turned on and into it, really nasty ones. Instead of my partner being a willing bottom, she becomes a frightened 19-year-old I picked up in a candy store and now I'm going to flog her till she agrees to suck me off, or spread her cheeks for me - or something else she desperately wants to resist. Or I'll let myself see a beautiful middle aged spy who I have been torturing for weeks with enemas, anal rape and prolonged tickling (all things I love as a top). If I'm flogging a man I may imagine him as a rival, a conquered enemy or the husband of the spy I mentioned above, being tortured to make her talk. In fantasy, there are no limits. Sometimes I'll dedicate individual strokes: "This one is for the bastard who cut me off in traffic"; "That one is for my ex being a bitch on the phone the other day"; "This one is for the look my boss gave me at the briefing"; "That one is for me to hear you whimper"; "This one is for the bullies who hassled me in Grade school"; "That one is for the holocaust, you skanky, Nazi bitch". If I glimpse myself in the mirror, I will often see an expression of demonic glee in my eyes.

At some point I will feel the animal lumbering forward, the persona that used to scare me, the one that used to make me sure that I was crazy, that I was two people; the me my friends knew, and this other terrible dark force that took pleasure in the suffering of others. It used to scare me, but now I welcome it forward, and from my flushed cheeks, my gnashing teeth, the taste of raw meat appearing suddenly in my mouth, I'll know I've reached the next plateau. I have been told that my teeth seem to lengthen, little horns sprout up, and a certain gleam appears in my eyes. Sometimes I get right in my partner's face, make her look in my eyes to really see the wildness rising (I am always surprised at how well this works). I'll talk dirty to her. I'll make her repeat humiliating things, while I squeeze her tits. I'll stop again, kissing, hugging, throttling back, reigning myself in. I'll use my sweat as a libation, my lips, my teeth, my nails to rake her skin. I might find myself growling, moaning as I toggle back and forth from watching the scene critically and reveling in it. I will try a lot of different body play techniques or maybe I will save some for later. Tickling her until she is blubbering and hysterical, spanking her until long after my hand is sore. Make her watch as I break the ice cubes from a tray, into a loudly ringing metal bowl. Telling her all the while that I am going to put three of them up her ass.

All the while, I am lapping up pleasure like water out of a dish. All the while, I am watching, asking questions, making decisions. Am I marking her? Is she breathing deeply or choked, fast or shallow? Is she about to cry? For this person is that bad or good? Is an ice cold suppository a good idea, or is the threat enough? Should I spin her around and whip her breasts for a while? How long have I been at it? Is she done? Does she want more? Should I let her come? Has she come already without asking? This constant flow of questioning and the answers they invoke will inform how I guide the scene and how long. And if she safe words, or seems in over her head, I switch hats. SM is a banquet of many dishes, and I switch from enjoying the animal rush of the scene to savoring the joys of self-control, of compassion, and skill. I take a deep breath, and say: "Here's another chance to act like a knight". I stop nibbling on the pleasures of being bad, switch to the delicacies of compassion and concern and savor that instead, knowing if I do, I'll get to be bad again soon.

And where is the spirituality? Everywhere. In the channeling of alternate personalities in both my partner and myself, in how time is doing funny things, in the sacrifice of my own pleasure, my willingness to reign myself in when I would love to race forward, in the hot excitement of reveling in things my vanilla friends could never understand or accept. In the intimacy created by our mutual "sex crimes". In the rapture I feel as I discover new sounds my partner makes. In the heightened senses the way that everything seems different, in the satisfaction that lasts days, in the insights, however subtle I gained from the experience. In integrating blood lust with artistry yielding bliss for my partner and myself. It is the proof positive that all of me is holy - that the devouring, animal side of me is blessed as well. In the wonder and love toward my partner for allowing me to feast on their body, submission and pain. No angels blowing trumpets, no light show, no Stephen Spielberg special effects, just the floating, dreamlike feeling, a primal animal awareness that we have been here before. At the scene's conclusion, we are not only fulfilled and replenished but also wiser, more compassionate, more connected to the world than when we began.

This is the best I can do to describe it. The sado-erotic rapture of going deep is identical to the religious epiphany in at least one respect: it surpasses the ability of words to describe it. These moments of cathartic revelation of my animal side, of my most sacred and secret personal desire, of my fusion with an accepting soul mate number among the most blissful experiences life has yet shown me. Words cannot capture, but only point towards, the savage beauty of the experience. It exists beyond the end of language.